241 Reply by wedanced

(161 replies, posted in Other Vintage Computers & Consoles)

Tinctu wrote:

And what about AWE32 or AWE64?

from what i understand the awe32 had some models with opl3 but most just emulated the sounds via Vibra chips/whatever else. From what i gather the sound is thin but clear. based off of the other soundblaster 16s with vibra chips that would make sense compared to the real opl3. The awe 32 basically was a soundblaster 16 with extra stuff with additional support for midi synthesis and waveguide synthesis if i remember correctly.

anyways there was a value version released and a really budget one that went as the Sound Blaster 32. i am going to assume those used the vibra chips. i think the original used opl3. if you look at pictures of the early boards you can see that they clearly do have a real opl3 soldered on at the bottom middle (isa contacts facing down). the later ones some have a huge vibra chip smack dab in the middle and others just dont have it. best way i can think of to judge is just looking at the board its self.

I have been looking at pictures of different models to look for the opl chip. i can say that CT3900 CT2760 CT3780 deff have it

cards i know that dont have a real opl CT3990 CT3600


the cards that go by sound blaster 32 models are listed below:

CT36**: CT3600, CT3604, CT3605, CT3620, CT3630, CT3640, CT3670, CT3671, CT3672
CT39**: CT3930, CT3991, CT3999
CT43**: CT4330, CT4335, CT4335


the AWE 32 boards with opl chip look like this:

a SB version can look like this:

But most of the ones i have looked at that dont have the opl as far as i can tell look like this:


The awe 64 just added more polyphony i think. truthfully i dont know too much about it other then it was smaller then the awe 32 and it was supposed to have a less noisy sound then the 32 though the 32 was supposed to be pretty quiet to begin with. From what can recal there is no opl3 on those. the emulate the sounds. they came in 2 flavors i think. the gold and the normal vesion. the gold was supposed to sound better.

Thats about all i got. I am having issues findimg images of some of the models for the awe 32 so there is no way for me to check the rest. blaaaaaaaahhh sigh*

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242 Reply by wedanced

(1,383 replies, posted in Sega)

!!!

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243 Reply by wedanced

(161 replies, posted in Other Vintage Computers & Consoles)

Hey guys so i found a nice sound comparison for the OPL3 soundblaster 16.

make sure to listen to with a decent set of headphones or speakers.

So here is the word.
The first card is using the sound blaster awe 32 which didnt have an opl3 chip and was more of an add on. The sound is noticably thin thought it has a clean signal.

The next card is the original soundblaster 16 with the opl3 chip that isnt combined with another to save money like the latter Vibra versions.
The bass and clarity is fantastic.
Models that fall into this category are:

CT12**: CT1230, CT1231, CT1239, CT1290, CT1291, CT1299
CT17**: CT1730, CT1740, CT1749, CT1750, CT1759, CT1770, CT1779, CT1780, CT1789, CT1790, CT1799
CT22**: CT2230, CT2290
CT27**: CT2700, CT2740, CT2770


The vibra 16 is really thin and noisy and was created as a budget version of the SB16. It is not recomended.
Models that fall into this category are:

CT12**: CT1260, CT1261, CT1262
CT22**: CT2260
CT28**: CT2800, CT2810, CT2860, CT2890
CT29**: CT2900, CT2940, CT2941, CT2942, CT2943, CT2945, CT2950, CT2960, CT2970, CT2970, CT2980, CT2990
CT41**: CT4100, CT4101, CT4102, CT4130, CT4131, CT4132, CT4150, CT4173, CT4180, CT4181, CT4182

The easiest way to tell if you are buying a good sound blaster 16 card is to check the size. the original SB16 is huge compared to the vibra models do to cutting down on production costs. Also you should be able to find the opl3 chip on a original SB16. The Vibra doesnt have this original chip that you can see out in the open.

This site has pictures of the basic models sold. http://svga.ks8.ru/sound.html take a look

another thing to note is that the earliest version of the card had a smaller opl3 chip and is labeled by its real name as the Yamaha YMF262

Happy soundblaster hunting smile

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244 Reply by wedanced

(13 replies, posted in Other Vintage Computers & Consoles)

O shoot i didnt realize that link was just for pci!!!!

no worries ant1 I am ISA all the way for this.

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245 Reply by wedanced

(13 replies, posted in Other Vintage Computers & Consoles)

LamptonWorm wrote:

This might help? If you have PCI... http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=27710

Cheers,
LW.

That is really helpful actually smile

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246 Reply by wedanced

(13 replies, posted in Other Vintage Computers & Consoles)

LamptonWorm wrote:

...CRT monitor smile and maybe a 3DFX Voodoo graphics card at a push, not sure on the age/model of your 486 (there were a few) and if you are looking at PCI or not. Cool project though. Recommend Fast Tracker, or Scream/Impulse for tunes.

Cheers,
LW.

Fast tracker Is my goto for sample based tracking smile
I am working with ISA mostly i think. I have a friend who will be helping me pick out the right mother board and all that I am mostly interested in add ons.

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247 Reply by wedanced

(13 replies, posted in Other Vintage Computers & Consoles)

ant1 wrote:

i think you listed two soundcards (the same one twice) and no graphics adapter!

lol looks like i did smile

yeah no idea about graphics cards thats why i got nothing. voodoo sounds good.

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248 Topic by wedanced

(13 replies, posted in Other Vintage Computers & Consoles)

Hey guys. so here is the word. I am trying to build a super 486 PC to generate music on and maybe do a bit of gaming as I am working on maybe doing some game development. I am trying to think of all the sound chip/soundcard options to throw in this thing and what graphics

intel486 processor
Soundblaster 16 early model
CD Drive
3.5 floppy
5.25 floppy
PS2 mouse jack
Joystick port
Dos / windows 95
Parallel Printer Port For (Covox speech thing i am building)
SoundBlaster 16 (Already purchased an early model with the OPL3 not integrated into another chip)

Can you guys think of other stuff That might be legit?

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249 Reply by wedanced

(16 replies, posted in General Discussion)

little-scale wrote:

$100 is fine.

Many people have no idea how much time and effort and energy - sometimes at great personal expense - making hardware for the scene can be.

what this dood said.

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250 Reply by wedanced

(1,383 replies, posted in Sega)

yes. Another round please!

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251 Reply by wedanced

(29 replies, posted in Other Hardware)

and of course little-scale already had been messing around with this stuff.

http://little-scale.blogspot.com/2011/1 … g-for.html

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252 Reply by wedanced

(29 replies, posted in Other Hardware)

holly shit guys. i think i just found what i have been looking for hardware wise. It can use the same r2r circuit that the speech thing uses. it would just need some programing to output samples and act as a soundcard otherwise it is all there.

http://blog.makezine.com/2011/02/15/dac/

It would be waaaaay easy to build then all the other options as far as i can tell.

and if I am thinking about this correctly you could get stereo sound via making another 8 point r2r and hooking those up to the extra points. BAM BITCHES. dual 8-bit resolution play back outputs. 

Any of you into this idea and are good with the programing tongue
my programing skills are piss poor.

It would mean authentic covox speech thing sounds for your modern computer with the added bonus of stereo! *nudge nudge wink wink*

looks like arduino is the way to go!

the covox r2r circuit!

pretty much everything nitro said tongue

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253 Reply by wedanced

(29 replies, posted in Other Hardware)

hmmmmmm.... Well i wanted an external soundcard option for when i play live. It would be nice to just plug and play and to get some dirty oldschoolish sounds while i bump my ableton jams but it really sounds easier to just record some lower sample rate files and use those at this point sad

Herr_prof: well it would probably be easier to just do it with Arduino wouldn't it? i mean i couldn't really output from ableton in the the PI and out of its gpio pins could i? I mean i dont know nothing about nothing tho so correct me if i am wrong.

ant1: I am using ableton, i seem pretty not purist at this point. I can learn to deal and just sample everything. I am already cheating aren't i wink
lol i actually create a lot of my patches using simpler and samples i take from mods i have worked on with older computers. I am actually pretty heavy in to sample synthesis due to all my time with LGPT tracker and nitrotracker. I am a total control freak tho. I always have to make my own samples otherwise it really ends up getting on my nerves and i feel like i am cheating myself.

boomlinde: That sounds like a good idea if i understand what was said. The first idea is replacing the DAC circuit of an already built USB soundcard with the covox circuit. The issue is that they integrate the circuit of the usb translator/blah blah blah chip and the DAC into one chip rather then having a separate DAC chip handle it? would it be a possibility too that even if you found a soundcard with a separate DAC chip it might not have the 8 points required for the covox circuit to work anyways? i can look around tho and see what soundcards are doing these days hardware wise.

I did find some DIY ADC projects online but after the DAC we would run into the whole USB requirements again putting us at square one again i think.

egr must be thinking of the gameboy master covox tongue

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254 Reply by wedanced

(29 replies, posted in Other Hardware)

I am not sure. I dont have any knowledge about the pi other than the basic idea that it is a cheap programmable computer that runs off a SD for a hardisc. I dont know anything about what kind audio it can output. I was thinking about getting one just to fool around with tho smile

my next thoughts on the matter is that maybe i could use an older sound card via usb like soundblaster 16 or something.
There are usb to isa adaptors.
http://www.arstech.com/item-USB-2-0-to- … 2isar.html

At this point i am thinking i am just hitting on mental masturbation rather than anything useful tho.

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255 Reply by wedanced

(29 replies, posted in Other Hardware)

thats about what i thought. blaaaah!!!
too bad. I think building all of that then coding the driver is waaaaay more work then i am willing to do.

Arduino would be interesting as i have seen some people already do similar projects.

I think what i will do is probably just build a speech thing download the drivers and hook it up to my old compaq laptop. I can sample sounds on that thing and record from the speech thing using fasttracker hooked up to my modern computer.

the compaq has an older ESS Audiodriver. the ess apparently records and plays back in 16-bit stereo but from my experience it always colors the sound and even has that nice crunchy fade out while volume of a sample is approaching zero. I will just make do with that until i can build a covox.

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256 Reply by wedanced

(33 replies, posted in General Discussion)

i had a dream where i was myself...........then i woke up and i was myself...... then i made some chipmusic. does that count?

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